All posts by Robin Scharpf

About Robin Scharpf

Robin is a senior marketing manager with 20 years of marketing and client management experience. She applies her in-depth marketing background with an eye on results. Robin is a natural leader, creative thinker and enthusiastic problem solver. Prior to joining Profitecture, Robin spent 10 years with IBM’s Channel and Midsize Business Unit where she monitored and analyzed market trends, developed business plans and marketing strategies, managed its emerging market portfolio, led global execution of integrated communication plans, launched a client advisory board, and coached executives and business partners on social media participation and social authority.
A University of Dayton alumna, she is a seasoned photographer and dreams of being a blues singer in her next life.
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Our Profitecture social media coaches take great pride in helping our corporate students get the most out of social media with minimal impact on their already busy schedules. And coach-student relationship doesn’t end with the Social Media Boot Camp certificate of completion. Our coaches make themselves available to all alumni seeking social media refreshers, advice and feedback for months and years to follow.
It’s with this commitment to continuous improvement and social media excellence that our team kicked off 2016 with an e-seminar dedicated to our Social Media Boot Camp alumni. The e-seminar featured Paul Gillin presenting the…

If you’re a savvy marketing leader, you’re already implementing or thinking about implementing an employee advocacy program. Employee advocacy is a popular topic with B2C and B2B marketers these days. It should be. But are your employees doing more harm than good?
What is employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy is not a new concept however the name and the tools to implement it are relatively new. Employee advocacy is empowering your employees to extend your brand’s reach to their network. Not so complicated, right? And thanks to social media and platforms like Dynamic Signal’s, employees can quickly and easily share corporate-appr…

by Robin Scharpf, September 15, 2015
I do not believe your Klout score matters. I’ve been coaching B2B executives to build social media skills and habits for seven years. My team at Profitecture has coached over 4,000 B2B professionals. To date, there are no instances where a Klout score positively or negatively affected a B2B professional’s success with social media.
But yet, Klout is still around. It launched in 2008 and Klout scores still appear on Twitter profiles when viewed in HootSuite. I no longer see scores on profiles viewed in Twitter, but then I haven’t looked too hard for them. You see, I believe influence and socia…

Cutting-edge marketers are expanding the role and visibility of Subject Matter Experts (SME), according to IT Solutions Marketing Association’s 2014 study, How B2B Buyers Consume Information. Are you one of them?
Let’s face it. When a B2B customer is making a complex buying decision, marketing is one of the last resources to which the buyer wants access. The buyer wants access to SMEs - product managers, sellers, engineers, consultants, and other clients. Buyers want to engage with people, not brands, to learn the ins and outs of the product or service for which they are about to invest significant time and money. Yet, too often it’s…

Social media has transformed the B2B buying process, giving customers unprecedented amounts of information and advice from their peers. Selling is increasingly about listening for opportunities, engaging early in the sales cycle and building trust.
Last month, Paul Gillin led our Social Media Boot Camp Alumni through a session to help them navigate this new landscape by sharing some of the basics of Social Selling. The session covered:
+ The changing customer buying process and its impact on sales cycles
+ Why trust is the new currency of B2B markets
+ How to use LinkedIn to identify opportunities, research prospects a…

If you’ve signed up for our Social Media Boot Camp and dug your heels in against Twitter, don’t worry. You’re not the first, and, I suspect, you won’t be the last. But you should know that does not deter our coaches from introducing you to one of the most powerful social media platforms for B2B sellers, executives and marketers who want to keep their finger on the pulse of their industry. Any industry. Technology. Healthcare. Real estate. Retail. Finance. You name it, it’s all represented. And represented well.
Twitter is a powerful tool for networking, listening, learning, and engaging. Sure, some people (too many, in my opini…

by Robin Scharpf
That’s right! We’re a small team of social media consultants and coaches and we’re NOT on Facebook. Shocking, right?
Once upon a time we were on Facebook. We had a flashy company page. We updated it daily with pictures, videos and advice. Now we don’t. We deleted the account.
Why? Because that’s not where our potential clients look for social media coaching, advice or expertise. At least not today. We tried it. We monitored it. We pulled it.
Regardless of business size, we all have to be selective where we invest time and money. To be successful at social media, you don’t have to be everywhere …